


Out of Sight

by fits_in_frames



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-20
Updated: 2006-07-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:19:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fits_in_frames/pseuds/fits_in_frames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments during Todd Anderson's stay at Welton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Sight

It rains on Todd's first night at Welton. The rain pounds against the window, making it impossible for him to fall asleep, so he curls up, facing the wall, covers tucked neatly between his chin and his knees. He tries to focus on anything else he can hear: the tick of his alarm clock, the creak of some teacher or another patrolling the hallway outside, the low sleep-breathing sounds of his roommate. Neil doesn't snore so much as make a "hmm" sound with every exhale. It reminds Todd of summer nights when he would share a bed with his brother. Jeff would keep him up until they heard an owl out in the backyard, and after the owl was shot by neighborhood boys (a fact he found out many years later), Jeff would throw his voice and imitate the hooting and humming until Todd was fast asleep. It's a comforting thought, but when he wakes up the next morning, he's already forgotten it.

*

Neil helps him with his chemistry homework. He's never been very good at science, which is probably why his parents want him to be a banker. Neil perches himself on Todd's desk, and explains to him about atoms and reactions and periodic tables, and Todd listens. He gets a 95 on his first exam and Neil punches the air for him, and then hugs him. It's an awkward hug, one of those in which the person being hugged is caught unawares and finds his arms suddenly pinned to his sides. His legs feel twitchy, like the time his brother gave him a cup of coffee. Neil releases him, and they just stare at each other for a moment. "Thanks," Todd mumbles, looking at his feet, and sits down to work on his trigonometry without waiting for a response. Neil is gone when he looks up again, books and coat and all.

*

The first poem he writes comes out of nowhere. He kind of likes it, but that may be because it's four in the morning on a Saturday and he hasn't slept all night. Neil rolls over in his sleep, and Todd stares down at the page, at phrases like "boyish chagrin" and "lanky undertones". He tears the page out, carefully, quietly, and rather than crumpling it up like he probably should, he folds it into four even sections and tucks it inside the front cover of the Bible he keeps in the bottom drawer of his desk. Nothing he writes after that is any good, but he doesn't give up until Neil is halfway through his thirtieth recitation of Puck's closing monologue after dinner on Sunday.

*

He wants to read something at the Society meeting on his birthday. After scouring book after book after book (including the one Keating gave Neil for the Society), he finally decides to overcome his aversions to both speaking and Whitman by reading from _Leaves of Grass_. He marks the page with a scrap of paper, even though it's just a few pages in. He carries it with him everywhere for the entire day, and is practicing when Neil comes over to him and asks about the desk set. Later, when they get ready to leave, he asks Neil to listen to him read. He starts, "I celebrate myself..." but Neil stops him. No no no, he says, there's a much better one, here. He opens to the middle of the book, and presses his palm to the page. Todd doesn't know which one he means, but now it's time to go, and he almost walks into the doorframe when he reads: "We two boys together clinging". He thanks God later, when Charlie brings the girls and he has an excuse to disappear into the cave wall and not read at all.

*

He doesn't go to Neil's funeral. There is one, of course, and he planned to go--hell, even Cameron was going--but at the last minute, he decides to stay in and try, desperately, to feel something beyond the perpetual nausea and heavy emptiness in his chest. Everything of Neil's has been stripped from the other side of the room, from the sheets on the bed to the Midsummer Night's Dream poster on the wall to the clothes in the closet. He sits down at Neil's desk for a moment, then puts on his coat, and goes outside. Neil would laugh at him, he thinks, standing out in the cold when there's a funeral going on inside where it's warm. He starts to laugh, too, then drops to his knees and cries: not the leaking, sniffling routine he did while singing from the hymnal this morning, and not the violent, retching ordeal he pulled when Charlie and the others followed him into the snow before anyone else was awake. No, these are sobs that hurt his shoulders and tears, large as raindrops, that fall one by one off his eyelashes and into his lap. Finally, he stands up, wipes his nose on his suit sleeve, and brushes the snow off his knees. He shoves his hands in his coat pockets, and pulls out a play program. He opens it, runs a finger over Neil's name, and stands there, smiling (at least, he thinks he smiles, but it could be distorted by the massive sniffle, he'll never know), until he hears the bagpipes and ducks out of sight.


End file.
